Running Scared
by Thermopyle
Summary: What if Genma had a good reason for taking Ranma on the training trip? Complete shortfic.


Ranma belongs to Rumiko Takahashi, not me.  
  
Running Scared  
By Thermopyle  
http://thermopyle.anifics.com  
  
#####  
  
Genma sat down, cursing his son's foolishness. They were going to die  
because of the damn fool boy's idealistic view of his mother, and there  
wasn't a thing he could do about it. She was going to cut off their  
heads after forcing them to stab themselves in the gut. It just wasn't  
fair.  
  
It was his son's fault, too. How ungrateful. After all these years of  
coddling the boy while molding him into a great but still sane martial  
artist, away from the crazy influence of his wife, Ranma had gone and  
walked back to the woman with a big smile on his face. Idiot.  
  
The Tendous were seated in the room along with him, as well as Ranma and  
Nodoka, with the latter two talking about what they had missed of each  
other while separated. Nodoka was asking what he thought of his  
fiancee, which seemed to embarrass him somewhat, causing him to make  
denials, which she just smiled condescendingly at, her manner indicating  
that she didn't really believe a word of it.  
  
The engagement, too, was thanks to Nodoka. Genma hadn't wanted the  
arranged marriage, had fought it quite hard, not at all happy about the  
prospect of his son being forced into the same misery that he was, but  
to no avail. The Tendou and Saotome union was insisted upon by his  
wife, who had wanted to have Ranma marry one of her friend's daughters.  
  
Genma knew better than to oppose his wife directly. He'd been depressed  
about being forced into marriage despite still wanting to sow the fields  
as a man his age should be doing, so he hadn't paid enough attention  
when signing those documents during the marriage ceremony. He'd quickly  
found out that he had, indeed, made a big mistake in doing so. Being  
threatened with forced seppuku for staying out drinking one night rather  
than being home on time for supper had been a rude awakening.  
  
After that, the 'little' danger signs had quickly become more and more  
apparent. If he didn't eat correctly in her presence, she brought out  
the Saotome family sword, which should never have been given to such a  
lunatic. If he said something that made her upset, he was declared  
unmanly. One time he'd protested the way she liked to warm her cold  
feet up while in bed by pressing them against his privates, claiming  
they were warmer than the rest of him, and he'd spent the night awake  
and with a sword to his throat as his balls nearly froze off. He'd  
never been as scared in his entire life, and the fear of being around  
her hadn't abated at all with time.  
  
"So, tell me about your training trip," said Nodoka.  
  
Oh well. Despite the terrors of the Master and the greater terror that  
was his wife, he'd still had a good life. His son had been fun to teach  
despite his stupidity and disrespectful attitude. Ranma might have gone  
further if he had stuck to the original training outline, but the boy  
had still ended up the best fighter of his generation, which was  
impressive enough in itself. Going the other way probably would have  
just killed him pretty early on.  
  
After a few minutes of listening to Ranma describe some of the lighter  
and less intensive training methods to his mother, during which Nodoka's  
eyebrow slowly went up and up and up, she spoke again.  
  
"Ranma," she said, "what about all the other stuff? You don't have to  
leave anything out."  
  
"Yeah, Ranma, why don't you tell her about your cute fiancee, Ukyou, and  
how you got engaged to that Chinese slut," Akane added from the side,  
scowling at him.  
  
There went the other eyebrow, both of them hanging high upon her  
forehead for a few moments before lowering into an obvious scowl.  
Nodoka threw a glance in his direction that promised much pain, then  
turned back to her son.  
  
"What about the Nekoken? Did you learn that?" she asked.  
  
Now everybody looked confused, obviously wondering how Nodoka would know  
about it.  
  
"Yeah," answered Ranma, stuttering slightly, "idiot Pops taught me that.  
Why?"  
  
"What about the Touched Soul training?"  
  
Nodoka's scowl deepened at Ranma's look of confusion.  
  
"Magma Diving?"  
  
"Viper's Kiss?"  
  
"Tainted Blood?  
  
"Ocean-Born?"  
  
"Everlasting Darkness?"  
  
Nodoka quit talking and simply stared at Ranma, who obviously hadn't  
recognized any of the techniques she'd mentioned.  
  
Genma wondered how long they had left, but decided it didn't matter.  
He'd been living on borrowed time for years and years now, and had done  
the best he could to make the most of that time for him and his son. It  
was either that, or kill his son through her crazy ideas of 'training',  
which any halfway sane person would count as murder attempts.  
  
When he'd left with Ranma ten years earlier, the seppuku pledge he and  
the boy had signed had been the only thing that convinced Nodoka to let  
them go. She had said she would expect him at the Tendous in ten years  
time, and that she fully intended to carry out the pledge if Ranma  
wasn't married or well on his way to being so shortly after. During the  
ten year reprieve, Genma had taken advantage of that wording to engage  
Ranma to as many girls as possible, hoping that one of them would work  
out and he could maybe, possibly, convince Nodoka to not kill the both  
of them.  
  
He'd been pretty sure from the beginning that it wouldn't work, and his  
hopes hadn't been raised at any point since.  
  
Nodoka turned to look at him, her eyes hard. "Genma? Would you care to  
explain why our son's training was never completed?"  
  
"Um, I taught Ranma the Nekoken, and then he ate the list before I could  
get to the other stuff?"  
  
  
Soon afterwards Genma and his son were both dressed in white, and each  
had a tanto at hand for the ceremony. He had tried to act as Ranma's  
second, to at least lessen the boy's pain, but Nodoka had been  
unwilling. He had done what he could.  
  
The last ten years had been a blast. His time spent teaching Ranma had  
been the best period of his life, despite being on the road and outdoors  
much of the time. Ranma had grown to be a strong young man. A bit  
stupid, but still very strong and a good boy overall. It was a shame  
his mother was about to cut his head off.  
  
The Tendous, as well as Ranma's other two fiancees, both watched  
silently from the sidelines. He supposed that any pain Ukyou and  
Shampoo were about to suffer was his fault, for arranging the  
engagements with them to begin with, but he'd been trying to save his  
son's life and didn't regret his decisions.  
  
"Are you ready?" Nodoka asked her son, who still had a shell-shocked,  
confused expression on his face. When Ranma had been told she didn't  
care about the curse, he'd been visibly ecstatic. Finding out the  
reality of his mother's cruel insanity right on the heels of that had  
left him stunned and bewildered. At least she was going to kill him  
first, instead of making the poor kid watch his father be beheaded.  
  
"Ranma," Genma said quietly, catching the boy's attention when he made  
no response to his mother, "just follow my movements."  
  
His son stared at him for a minute, then nodded slowly.  
  
Genma picked the knife up and then held it blade up and tip pointed  
towards his own stomach. Ranma followed his example and they were then  
kneeling side-by-side, with Nodoka standing above Ranma, the Saotome  
honor blade extended above his head, ready to cleave her son's neck as  
soon as the time came.  
  
He looked over at his son, who had calmed slightly. Genma nodded, and  
received the same in response, and then he jerked his arms inwards as he  
closed his eyes. Before his vision was blocked, he saw Ranma's arms do  
the same.  
  
White fire lit in his belly, the pain incredible, but he still heard  
clearly the thump of two things hitting the floor, one rolling a short  
distance. Somebody cried out, he couldn't tell who. Maybe it was  
Akane, or one of her sisters? It could have been Ukyou, or Shampoo, or  
even--.  
  
  
The End.  
  
Notes: This is the result of reading too many fics where Nodoka, upon  
finding out about the Nekoken and the other stuff Genma did to Ranma,  
tries to kill her husband, even though none of the Tendous or anybody  
else was really at all upset about the Nekoken. It's very overused,  
imo, and I felt a response was required as a bit of a reversal on that  
cliché, as well as poking a bit of fun at all those perfect Nodoka,  
horrible Genma fics. Hopefully it works as well as I intended it to.  
  
"Touched Soul" is something I first saw in Jack Staik's "Another  
Approach", I've no idea whether he was the first person to use it or  
not. "Oceanborn" and "Tainted Blood" were both mentioned to me as being  
from bet fics, but I've no idea who came up with them or even what they  
really are. "Magma Diving", "Viper's Kiss", and "Everlasting Darkness"  
were all things I came up with on my own. 


End file.
